“Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had nothing to start with, by myself and my own ideas. Let other people do the same thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial structure, I will start in at the beginning and build it up again.”
-Henry Ford
February 11, 1934
There is just too much awesomeness and irony in this quote.
The unions support Democrats.
Democrats control the Federal Government (Bush is barely a Republican anymore).
The bail out for the big 3 is a bail out of the UAW.
Ergo, there will be a bail out; it will require the big 3 to make cars Americans don’t want to buy - small hybrids, their ultimate failure will just be delayed a few years.
M_P
The bailout has nothing to do with the UAW. It has to do with ceo’s making 28 million a year i don’t know of any UAW member making that much. Why should the blue collar workers be given the blame for this and be expected to take pay cuts and cuts in health benefits i don’t see any of management being asked to do any of this. I also didn’t hear of anyone blaming bank tellers when the banks are getting a 700 billion bailout.
Yeah, union workers don’t benefit from the union.:rolleyes:
The average UAW worker with a high school degree earns 57.6% more compensation than the average university professor with a Ph.D. (see graph above, click to enlarge), and 52.6% more than the average worker at Toyota, Honda or Nissan.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/07/uaw-pricing-themselves-out-of-market.html
Auto industry CEO’s don’t make any more on average than CEO’s in other industries with similar size companies. They are actually pretty much mid-pack.
The bailout has EVERYTHING to do with the UAW! Have you ever asked yourself why the only auto companies that are failing are the ones with master UAW contracts? They are laying off and closing plants left and right. You don’t see that with Honda, Toyota, BMW, and other transplant companies with non-union US plants.
A full discussion of how the UAW has completely subverted the Big-3 would be a virtual dissertation. The basic fact is the cost of paying employees wages and benefits for not working (job bank) and the enormous obligations to retirees for pensions and health care is breaking the backs of the Big-3. They actually negotiated new contracts to turn over a lot of that to the UAW, but the contract provisions don’t go in place until 2010, even though they were signed in 2007.
And do you remember that the UAW went on strike at GM one year ago? I guess “breaking the company” was a pretty bad idea back then, huh?
And the problem isn’t so much the pay as it is the unwillingness to do the work that they are being paid for. I’ve worked in the auto industry for most of the last 15 years, including management and engineering positions in plants organized by the UAW, IUE, and Steelworkers. I’ve seen it all first hand - equipment sabotage, deliberate slowdowns, intimidation of workers who did their jobs well, excessive absenteeism, abuse of FMLA statutes, corruption of local officials, you name it. The name of the game is to work a little as possible during straight time to get as much overtime as you can.
Now, I freely admit that it’s an 80/20 situation, even a 90/10. Most of the people do a good job and care about the quality of their work. But the ones who don’t really screw things up for everyone else. Now I suppose you might ask, if you were in management, why didn’t you do something about it? Ah, you see, I did and I have. But it takes a strength of will and support from your superiors that most managers don’t get. The constant fights with the union over BS and the constant efforts of the union to go over your head and undermine you with the senior management is something few people will put up with for very long until they simply start going with the flow.
Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of senior managers got to where they are - by going with the flow and playing politics. Years ago, that was the best way to get ahead because doing the right thing would generate so much union retaliation that it wasn’t worth it. So they settled for higher costs and lower efficiency because it was better than a wildcat strike. But now, you can’t do that anymore. Margins are so tight that you really have to achieve the efficiencies or the work will go somewhere else. And still, the UAW fights…
The model that the UAW and management of 40 years ago established is entirely to blame for this. The UAW, having accomplished most of the goals of a traditional union (acceptable work conditions, good wages and benefits) went for more and more, to prove to the workers that they still needed the union. The Big 3 were an oligopoly at the time so they saw no competitive disadvantage to accepting these deals as they realized that if they at Ford accepted bad deal, that GM and Chrysler would soon follow, leveling the playing field. Outside competition by companies that were not so encumbered has shown the foolishness of these deals.
Don’t know how to fix it, but trying to deny the union’s complicity in the problem is dishonest.
Henry was a smart man.
I know that you’re speaking in “glittering generalities,” but:
Bank tellers don’t get paid an average salary (vicinity Chigago) of $68,000 to do unskilled labor. Bank tellers don’t get promoted based almost entirely on seniority, so that they can get paid even more to NOT run a press, but push a broom around the line and maybe, MAYBE drive finished cars from the end of the line to the staging lot. Bank tellers don’t set up cots where they work so they can sleep.
Yes, I was once employed at an auto plant, and the above is the rule, not the exception, from my standpoint.
Given that your average GM worker gets in excess of $60/hr in pay and benefits, as opposed to a Toyota employee who gets a bit more than $35/hr pay/benefits for turning out a better product with no planned-in obsolescence, these sainted American blue-collar workers are not being given the blame, only the part of it that they and their unions deserve for being among many causal factors in the situation the American auto industry finds itself.
hey why so many anti union people i am uaw i am a general motors worker seems like lots of people want to blame unions you better do some research because without the unions a lot of others wouldnt have the benefits today if the unions were not around yes management and unions have their probs but the union is for the working man who else supports the workers i make good money and have done very well and i thank the uaw and general motors for that i think it boils down to jealousy but thats my opinion when people can make a living and support their family thats a good thing a lot of middle class people in this country are union or were before they lost their job and not all uaw members support dems i didnt
Dude, have you ever typed before?
M_P
hey pirate did you have a prob reading my printed words
That’s what that good union edumacation did for him…:rolleyes:
Thanks for supplying the knee-jerk UAW response. I’ve heard the same exact thing from many other union members. I love how you guys always bring up the idea of “jealousy”. I’m not jealous of union members. I am glad I have an education with transferable skills and I don’t have to depend on a seniority system to save my job or to get ahead.
No one is disagreeing that unions played an important role in the first half of the 20th century. There were unfair labor practices and workers abuses, no question. However, since the government has regulated worker safety through OSHA and fair labor practices through the NLRB and the Dept. of Labor, many of the original reasons for unions are no longer an issue.
Since then, the unions have primarily gone after constant wage and benefit increases. There’s a difference between a fair wage, and being the highest paid labor force in the country. There’s a difference between making a living and supporting a family, and getting paid two to three times the national median family income. The UAW has simply priced itself out of competitiveness and is now paying the price.
The greatest crime the UAW ever committed against their members is convincing them that the highest wages and best benefits in US industry amounted to “getting screwed” by GM, and calling the strike of 2007. Now GM is about to go under and Ron G. says “No more concessions”. OK, so does that mean it’s better to put 75,000 UAW members out of work than to make the changes GM needs to survive? It’s not like this is some kind of bluff by GM.
Just look at Toyota, Honda, and the other transplants. They pay excellent wages, have great benefits, and build vehicles with outstanding quality with US workers. They just don’t take any crap and if you don’t do the job you’re out on the street. It seems to work, the employees are happy for the most part, and they have never voted to unionize.
well everyone jump on board you think all uaw people are not educated or highly trained i work in a/c refrigeration i guess i am stupid because between in plant and side jobs i make over 200k a yr that make you JEALOUS again dog uaw all you want just wish all the anti union people would come out of the closet so we can quit giving you our hard earned money
I am openly anti union (UAW). Please detail what hard earned money it is that you are giving to me.
I never said anything of the kind. I’ve worked with many highly skilled UAW journeymen. I’ve learned more from them about how industrial equipment works and how to repair/improve it than anything I learned in engineering school. I’ve had some great UAW employees, who I think the world of and would go to war with, figuratively speaking. But my best employees - the ones that were good at their jobs and worked hard - were mostly anti-union. They acknowledged the wage and benefits, but despised the fact that they had to carry the others who wouldn’t and/or couldn’t do their jobs. You know, the ones who make a job take forever because they find every reason to wait for someone else to do something first before they can do their part of the job.
And what’s with the jealousy thing again? I know skilled trades who make that kind of money because they work 12 hours a day 7 days a week and every holiday. If you want to live like that, go right ahead. Notice no one else brought up how much money they make. It’s usually considered to be poor form to talk about such things…
If you have a marketable skill and make extra money on the side more power to you. You will be OK if/when GM goes under.
But tell me, how much of that 200K comes from GM, and how much of your take is overtime? Tell me how many hours a day you work? That is, how many hours are you actually “turning wrenches” and doing actual work instead of waiting for a job?
What is an a/c refrigeration tech making in your area, when their employers are not forced to pay UAW rate? The difference between what they make and what you are pulling down is why the Big 3 went TU. A company cannot pay a worker beyond what value they add to the process and expect to survive.
You are sounding like a bad caricature of a union worker. The gains that the unions gave us happened in the first half of the 20th century and are now codified into law. What gains have the unions gotten since the 1960’s that have benefitted the rest of the country? As I previously stated, the union had attained the goals that had driven the original unions. Good pay, safe working environment, acceptable benefits. The union leadership needed something to justify their existance, so they have worked to foster the us versus them mentality that is one of the most idiotic things I have seen. It is a bit like the offensive line having it out for the backfield. You are all on the same team, quit throwing ‘look out’ blocks.
The union being stuck in the 1960’s mindset has killed the Big 3. We are just watching the death throes, bail-out or no bailout. GM/Ford/Chrysler as we know them are going to be gone within 5 years. So any recriminations of union / non-union are moot.
Seconded. When I was in one of those unions, the only thing the consumer ultimately took from the workers was a crappy product. And a smarmy, Maoist bunker mentality.
Question in general: can anybody comment as to the union-affiliate status of the folks that staff the factories that turn out the AR parts we all seem to enjoy?
I also want to get in line for this money that union workers are giving out. I even have cause, my 2006 union masterpiece 6.0 Powerstroke still leaks oil.